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What 5 historic landmarks were demolished in Palm Beach County?

Palm Beach County is home to about 70 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. But a spot on that hallowed list doesn’t necessarily equal protection from the wrecking ball.

Here are five local landmarks, once deemed historic, that now exist only in history books.

The Brelsford house was long a center of social activity in Palm Beach. (Photo courtesy of Historical Society of Palm Beach County)

1. The Brelsford House, 1 S. Lake Trail, Palm Beach

A showplace like “The Banyans” was years in the making.

According to this historic American buildings survey, E.M. and Laura Brelsford began construction of the Colonial Revival mansion of their own design in 1888. The $13,000 house was completed 15 years later.

Nicknamed “The Banyans” for its landscaping, the grand, three-story home had a basement for its electric furnace and trunk storage, and an attic that slept three servants.

Over the years, the Brelsford House changed hands a couple of times and in 1967 was sold to nearby Royal Poinciana Chapel, which used the grounds as a parking lot.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, demolition crews destroyed what had taken so long to build in 1975.

The Bingham-Blossom house, seen here in the 1970s, was Palm Beach’s first oceanfront estate. (File photo/Palm Beach Daily News)

2. The Bingham-Blossom House, 1250 S. Ocean Blvd., Palm Beach

Charles William Bingham, a prominent Cleveland industrialist, got the idea of wintering in Palm Beach from his friend Henry Flagler.

C.W. and his wife, Mary Payne Bingham, and their clan spent their first winter here in 1894, the same year Flagler’s train arrived. They built a grand home with cross-ventilation and porches that their relatives enjoyed until the mid-1970s.

According to the Library of Congress, Figulus was “the first privately owned residence built on the ocean in Palm Beach.”

Considered an excellent example of Shingle-style architecture, this Figulus made the National Register in 1972 but was demolished in 1974.

The Dixie Court in 1984, about six months after it closed to hotel guests. (File photo/The Palm Beach Post)

3. Dixie Court Hotel, 301 N. Dixie Hwy., West Palm Beach

The seven-story Dixie Court Hotel, which welcomed its first guest on April 25, 1926, shared architectural DNA with the Palm Beach Town Hall, the Comeau Building on Clematis Street and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church on Flagler Drive.

All were designed by local architects Henry Stephen Harvey and L. Phillips Clarke.

And the Dixie Court was apparently a sight to see. Each of its 117 rooms boasted a private bath, and its lobby had a high, pecky-cypress ceiling, a tile floor and brass-and-wrought-iron chandeliers.

When this photo was shot of the Dixie Court’s lobby in 1984, the front desk clerks were still taking reservations. (Quincy Studios)

A 1931 ad for the Dixie Court read: “Complete in every respect — quiet, comfortable bedrooms — alert, gracious service — a most tempting menu — all the niceties of appointment and attention so characteristic of the Florida-Collier Coast Hotels.”

Beginning in the 1960s, retirees moved into many of the Dixie Court’s rooms. In later years, the hotel provided shelter for clients served by county and state social programs.

In 1984, the hotel hung up all its room keys, although a bank and legal offices rented space on the ground floor.

Placed on the national list in 1986, the hotel was leveled four years later, along with the nearby First Street jail and the Schooley Cadillac buildings.

The Palm Beach Winter Club was among the first structures built in the Lake Park/North Palm Beach area. (Photo courtesy of Lake Park Historical Society)

4. Palm Beach Winter Club, 951 U.S. Hwy. 1, North Palm Beach

Designed by French architect Louis de Puyseger, the four-story, 40-room, Mediterranean Revival-style Palm Beach Winter Club was completed in 1926 at a cost of $500,000.

As the original clubhouse of North Palm Beach’s golf course, the building opened to the public in January 1927 with a three-day celebration attended by many Palm Beach socialites who traveled by boat to get there.

The good times didn’t last for long. Hurricanes and hard economic times led to the club’s downfall during the Great Depression, when it was operated at a loss by various owners.

In the late 1930s and early ’40s, it served as one of the homes of prospector and philanthropist Sir Harry Oakes and his family, and it passed through other hands until the Village of North Palm Beach acquired it in 1962.

When a new clubhouse opened in 1963, the old Winter Club structure found new purposes: as birthplace of the village’s library, a recreation center and office space.

In 1939, State Sen. John Beacham purchased the 57-unit building, where he lived with his wife and mother until his death in 1950. While a resident, he entertained the likes of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and U.S. Rep. Claude Pepper in his large, first-floor apartment.

The photo at the very top of this post shows the empty lobby of the Hibiscus Gardens Apartments in 1983. It was included in its 1984 nomination to the National Register.

In the early morning hours of April 28, 1989, an arsonist entered the vacant building, and using a homemade fire bomb, set a fire in an interior hallway. (He later claimed it was his attempt to fight crime in the neighborhood.)

Firefighters doused the flames, but the building was beyond repair. City inspectors declared it unsafe, and it was razed shortly thereafter.